Comcast speed upgrades [Archive] - FLG

Bullfrog

10-22-2003, 05:34 AM

I would just be happy if they could get my service running stable again. I have had my cablemodem services for almost 4 years and in the last 3 1/2 prior to Comcrap it has been great. In the last 3 months the service goes down at least a couple times a week. In the last month it goes down every damn day. The local guys keep saying they had a problem but it's fixed now.

I am about 30 seconds away from calling SBC and getting DSL. I could careless about faster service from Comcrap, they can't even keep the standard stuff running. Plus what they want to charge for the service is a joke. If you want the faster service it's going to cost you $99.95 a month. A $100 a month 3Mbit is a rip-off for the service you will actually get. Sorry...but I am not impressed with Comcast and their business model.

xwred1

10-22-2003, 07:56 AM

My cable here in Stockton has been fine comcast took over. Biggest change was when they eventually shut down ATT's mail servers.

Bullfrog

10-22-2003, 08:54 AM

Originally posted by xwred1
My cable here in Stockton has been fine comcast took over. Biggest change was when they eventually shut down ATT's mail servers.

You must be on a different Hi-CAP then me because the service sucks. Chromedragon lives about 5 houses away from me and he get the same thing. It's been great until Comcast took over full operations. Almost like clock work I can watch the service slow down in the early evening and then just stop around 6pm. It usually takes until about 8~9pm for things to return somewhat to normal. The weekends are all over the place...

I am guessing that Comcast has changed the way Mediaone originally did the layout for Brookside. Mediaone had it setup so they couldn't overload a Hi-CAP and cause the huge lag spikes when everyone got on. It cost them a little more money but virtually eliminated any service interruptions. Why do I say that? Since Comcast has taken over I can watch DHCP lease times change from 4 days to 1 hour. It goes back and forth like a ping-pong ball. Plus I am now seeing different IP's that get leased depending on the renew. I used to ALWAYS get the same IP whenever I did a release/renew. That tells me they are screwing around with the network in my area and causing the problem. This has been going on now for almost 3 months and has gotten really bad the last 5 weeks.

All I get from Tech Support is 'I am sorry' (please don't switch to DSL tone of voice). I could live with ALL of this if they would just fess-up to WTF they are doing. I hate no knowing what is going on.

GeekDiva

10-22-2003, 10:53 AM

I'm not surprised that you're having problems with Comcast. I used to have them as well but got fed up and went to DSL and DirecTV. My internet service was always down and my IP was always changing. When I would call "Tech Support", I could hear them flipping the pages in their manuals while they hemmed and hawed looking for an answer. And most of the time, their answer was "Unplug your modem and restart your PC".

The reason why they don't fess up to what's going on is because they have no clue...at least in my area they didn't.

GotNoRice

10-22-2003, 10:58 AM

I’ve had only very minor problems with Comcast. Occasionally the connection will drop, but that’s almost always in the middle of the night. As for the IP, I’ve had the same one for over a year, since I last changed the nic in my server.

But, you gotta think, the “Comcast” network is a mix of a half dozen or more networks that were previously separate. In my area, it used to be TCI@home, then AT&T@Home, then ATTBI, now Comcast. Some areas used to be mediaone, some areas used to be roadrunner, some areas used to be some other smaller local cable company, some areas were always Comcast. Seems like most of the problems come from their push to consolidate things, which I suppose would be a good thing in the end.

termdec

10-22-2003, 11:02 AM

Originally posted by Bullfrog
All I get from Tech Support is 'I am sorry' (please don't switch to DSL tone of voice).

Try power-cycling your modem. And if that doesn't work, clear your browser cache. That will fix all your problems.

Bullfrog

10-22-2003, 12:15 PM

Originally posted by termdec
Try power-cycling your modem. And if that doesn't work, clear your browser cache. That will fix all your problems.

Trust me...that doesn't solve the problem.

GNR: My setup originally started with Mediaone RoadRunner. Then Mediaone converted to another standard and dropped all the Time-Warner stuff. Then TCI got involved just before AT&T bought it all out. So it has changed hands a number of times and all through that it's been stable and reliable.

Since Comcast has taken over and started making changes things have gone to hell in my specific service area. To me as the customer it doesn't really matter that this stuff has changed hands. If you are going to sell me a premium service that is 'always on' then I expect the thing to work....period. I understand all about annouced downtime for maintenance and I am all for it. But the crap I have going on now is not maintenance, it is screwed up.

I just guess it goes to show you that nothing good ever lasts.

FAngel

10-22-2003, 12:27 PM

Yep, Comcast is the shittiest ISP I've ever had. The service drops out at least 4 times a week, usually right around midnight for about 30 minutes than comes back up. If it wern't for the price (19.95 for the next few months) I'd switch back to DSL in a heartbeat.
Oh, as for the 3.0 down coming in December, thats for everyone, not just the people paying the 99.00, it's set to become there standard speed. There are rumors the the 99.00 a month people will get 6.0 down with 768up, but these are un-confirmed.

Heh, at my old house I had DSL through a isp called callatg (a local phone\internet company) when they expanded into my area, they installed all there own equipment at the local exchange. I was getting 5.5 down and 3.5 up all the time for 49.95, and that was back in 1999. They went bankrupt and had to switch to Speakeasy, which were good but speeds dropped to 1.5/768. And now cable at 1.8/256...Sigh....

xwred1

10-22-2003, 12:49 PM

Well there was a stretch of about a month ago where the service would go out for a minute or two at a time every 5 minutes or so and this lasted for maybe a week.

I don't use dhcp, so I haven't suffered from any lease changes, I'd only get screwed if they did an address renumbering which they haven't.

I don't run p2p 24/7 either, so maybe I'm not as sensitive as you might be... mostly I websurf, email, and ssh, and I expect my connection to always be there for whatever I need, and I'm ssh'd to one or two machines all the time. So I do notice when the service goes down or gets laggy.

GeekDiva

10-22-2003, 01:14 PM

I went from Excite@Home to Comcast and that's when all hell broke loose. Not only was I having problems with my connection, but they were jerking me around with my VPN connection. They wanted me to switch to "Comcast@Work" and charge me $200/month. Their reasoning was that since I was working from home, I was downloading tons of data. WTF?! I can download GB's of music and movies but couldn't check e-mail from work :confused: I know people in my area that are still experiencing problems. You would think that since I left them at the beginning of this year, they would have had things straightened out by now. The more things change, the more they stay the same...

Chromedragon

10-22-2003, 05:10 PM

This Comcast group is a bunch of idiots. I am so sorry ATT let it all go. they had there shit together. Now it is an act of congress to get anything done. And demons forbid that you have to get them to escalate a ticket to Tier 2. not only can you not get a status on the call unless you pester the level 1 id10t kids but they have no direct phone to the tier 2 people and basically tell you that we have filed a ticket it should be resolved in 48 hours but you will not receive a notification. please be patient. This absolutely sucks. As stated above some place I live 5 houses from the Frog and we usually check with each other prior to tearing in to the hard ware or even thinking about calling the Comcast nursery. The main reason I notice anything is that I play a couple of the mmorpgs (Earth and Beyond and Star Wars Galaxies) and well if the connection drops you notice it right quick.

ok off my box now. :confused:

enervate

10-22-2003, 08:38 PM

My connection drops in the middle of nowhere at any given time. The official answer is "no it doesn't".

xwred1

10-22-2003, 09:01 PM

Looks like I am being struck down form my own hubris earlier in this thread:

xwred1@stoneburner dotnet $ ping 63.172.195.6
PING 63.172.195.6 (63.172.195.6) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from 63.172.195.6: icmp_seq=1 ttl=47 time=826 ms
64 bytes from 63.172.195.6: icmp_seq=2 ttl=47 time=861 ms
64 bytes from 63.172.195.6: icmp_seq=3 ttl=47 time=896 ms

--- 63.172.195.6 ping statistics ---
4 packets transmitted, 3 received, 25% packet loss, time 3031ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 826.261/861.534/896.764/28.782 ms
xwred1@stoneburner dotnet $ ping6 www.kame.net
PING www.kame.net(orange.kame.net) 56 data bytes
64 bytes from orange.kame.net: icmp_seq=1 ttl=53 time=1353 ms
64 bytes from orange.kame.net: icmp_seq=2 ttl=54 time=1322 ms
64 bytes from orange.kame.net: icmp_seq=3 ttl=54 time=1410 ms
64 bytes from orange.kame.net: icmp_seq=4 ttl=54 time=1129 ms

--- www.kame.net ping statistics ---
5 packets transmitted, 4 received, 20% packet loss, time 5303ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 1129.431/1303.977/1410.897/105.694 ms, pipe 2
xwred1@stoneburner dotnet $ ping 209.142.0.2
PING 209.142.0.2 (209.142.0.2) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from 209.142.0.2: icmp_seq=1 ttl=45 time=902 ms
64 bytes from 209.142.0.2: icmp_seq=2 ttl=45 time=872 ms

--- 209.142.0.2 ping statistics ---
3 packets transmitted, 2 received, 33% packet loss, time 2019ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 872.843/887.642/902.441/14.799 ms

Bullfrog

10-23-2003, 10:26 AM

Originally posted by FAngel
Oh, as for the 3.0 down coming in December, thats for everyone, not just the people paying the 99.00, it's set to become there standard speed. There are rumors the the 99.00 a month people will get 6.0 down with 768up, but these are un-confirmed.

If I get 3.0 down in December for the same price AND they fix the damn network I will be happy. I am so pissed right now at them they could give me 10Mbit up / down and I wouldn't care. Ok..that's a slight exaggeration but you get the idea.

Xwred1: I sure hope the crap ain't spreading to your Hi-CAP because it sucks. Keep a close eye on it because when it goes, it goes bad fast. Also, they are doing renumbering on DHCP because I am seeing new addresses that I have never seen before.

I don't do ANY P2P stuff and I can still tell when it starts to happen. I watch packets get retransmitted over and over then POOF!. It just stops working.

xwred1

10-23-2003, 11:10 AM

It shouldn't be this hard to run a network. They should leave things alone and stop breaking them.

I wouldn't be surprise if the people who even notice this stuff is by far a minority of their userbase though, so maybe they just don't care.

DeadLamb

10-23-2003, 12:09 PM

Originally posted by xwred1
I wouldn't be surprise if the people who even notice this stuff is by far a minority of their userbase though, so maybe they just don't care.

yeah that migth be part of the problem.. back when comcast first rolled out here, way before the sell to att then back and so on.. We had an issue in my area of a bad hop RIGHT as the San Fran level.. You could trace it and point right at it..

sort of like everything was the normal speed then boooom, well more laaaaaaaaagggggggggg 300ms right at the local jump.. Now we all knew it, send them emails, bitched and so on.. Took a call 3 tv news report to fix it. Soon at that aired, it was taken care of in a week..

The thing was you really could only tell in games. Web pages, while still slower, still seemed way faster then 56k.. So odds are many never even knew there was a problem.

Beebo

10-23-2003, 01:48 PM

I just wish i could fucking get cable or dsl :mad:

My friend says there building a "fiber" station or something.

Hopefully that has to do with dsl or cable or some sort.

The thing that pisses me off is my friend who lives 5 mins from me has dsl. And i can't seem to get it >:|.

Oh well time will tell =/.

DeadLamb

10-23-2003, 05:31 PM

Originally posted by Beebo
I just wish i could fucking get cable or dsl :mad:

yea did I mention that if I ever get too upset at cable I can just jump ship to the........................ Surewest fiber optic line behind the house :) muhahah... You poor 56k boy.. "brrrrring bbbrrrring.... errrrrrrrrr ahhhhhhhhh rrraaarrr!!!" hehehehe

yeah yeah yeah I know, I know.. "OMFG why are you still with comcast".. I have my reasons....

Beebo

10-23-2003, 05:48 PM

Originally posted by DeadLamb
yea did I mention that if I ever get too upset at cable I can just jump ship to the........................ Surewest fiber optic line behind the house :) muhahah... You poor 56k boy.. "brrrrring bbbrrrring.... errrrrrrrrr ahhhhhhhhh rrraaarrr!!!" hehehehe

yeah yeah yeah I know, I know.. "OMFG why are you still with comcast".. I have my reasons....

Erm.. so fiber obtic line = high speed intraweb :?

Because if it does god damn im happy =].

What does it have to do with dsl or cable?

GotNoRice

10-23-2003, 05:57 PM

Well yeah, if you have fiber to your house, but most don't, and even the companies like surewest have these crazy download limits where if you download over X Gigs a month, they will shut you down. Worth the speed? maybe...

There are lots of uses for fiber though, even Cable network are fiber optic most of the way.

Anasazi

10-23-2003, 06:11 PM

Ohhhh Fiber!

I sooooo want to plug into one of the OC192's at work!:D

DeadLamb

10-23-2003, 06:11 PM

Originally posted by Beebo
What does it have to do with dsl or cable?

nothing sep it's a 10meg pipe.. Think of it as cable on crack.. So just that much faster.. Only issues is the tier system they run.. Being they do have a range of levels as far as how many gigs you can d/l in a given month..

of course for most that would never be an issues.. I see what most of you show up with at the LANs with as far as new "I leeched this" stuff.. limits would not hurt most of you at all...

but if you start to tear dvd-r rips off the net or iso's in bulk you blow past say 30gigs in less then two weeks.. (not that comcast likes ya doing that of course)

Bullfrog

10-24-2003, 02:08 PM

Update:

I just had a visit from the Comcast local techs and found a couple of key pieces of information. The most important for those in the Stockton local area is this....they ARE making a number of changes on their network. Those changes have been causing problems with older cablemodems. One of the ones admitted to having problems with is the old Toshiba PCX-1000...which is what I had.

They suggested that if you have a old setup to call in and have a tech out to fix the problem. The good part in I got a Motorla Surfboard in place of the old Toshiba. So please pray for me that this fixes the problems I have been having.

FAngel

11-05-2003, 03:17 PM

Bullfrog, hows your service since the modem switch?
Was thinking about upgrading my cable modem as it's three years old and dosent support some of the newer standards.

Bullfrog

11-05-2003, 07:03 PM

It has been MUCH improved sinced they replaced my cablemodem. I had one little glitch but I think it was tweaks they did on the network. They admitted that the changes they are doing are causing problems with older cablemodems. They are replacing the things like crazy.

If you are going to buy a new cablemodem I would recommend the Motorola Surfboard 5100. Seems to be the best one out there from what I have seen.

Chromedragon

11-07-2003, 10:07 PM

Well I put in a call to my local Comcast folks and got them to come to and replace my Cable modem and check the lines. They redid some of the connections and removed some extranious splitters and gave me a brand new Shinny Scinentific Atlanta modem. The Modem status page gives a lot of nice info like the Linksys modems do. I am not going to try and jinx my speeds but things have been very nice since the change and below are the signal strength i am getting.

Downstream Status Operational
Channel ID 1
Downstream Frequency 735000000 Hz
Modulation QAM64
Bit Rate 30341646 bps
Power Level -3.6 dBmV
Signal to Noise Ratio 34.6 dB

Upstream Status Operational
Channel ID 5
Upstream Frequency 25328000 Hz
Bit Rate 10240000 bps
Power Level 41.0 dBmV

xwred1

11-09-2003, 01:37 PM

i've got one of those modems at my new house now, what is the url for the status page?

I had to change my ip today because Comcast decided it didn't like the old one and was giving me 60% packet loss for some reason.

Chromedragon

11-09-2003, 04:44 PM

mine by default was 192.168.100.1 fairly standard...though the default password has been changed...good luck

xwred1

11-09-2003, 09:01 PM

Do you run your whole lan on 192.168.100.xxx? Or just subnet like a class b?

Seems like an odd ip for them to choose really, but not illegal.

Chromedragon

11-10-2003, 06:57 AM

As far as my internal lan no that is just the ip that most of the cable modems i have run across have used. Tis why i said fairly standard. Enjoy. :P

xwred1

12-01-2003, 01:51 AM

I just nat'd my lan to 192.168.100.0/24, what is the default password on the Scientific Atlanta? The user's guide pdf on their cd didn't have anything.

xwred1

12-01-2003, 11:31 PM

linux-2.4.23.tar.bz2: ETA: 0:37 14.24/ 28.45 MB 393.71 kB/s

It would seem that Comcast gave me a free speed bump. I'm pulling that speed sustained. Dslreports says I'm getting 3.3mbit now. Just last night when I got the password for my modem, I thought it look odd when it said the download speed - looked like 30 mbps.

cookypuss

12-02-2003, 04:20 PM

no upgrade for me just yet. i'm in the roseville area. hopefully we'll be included in this upgrade.

cove

12-02-2003, 04:39 PM

Status in Elk Grove with Comcast:
Your download speed : 1802569 bps, or 1802 kbps.
Your upload speed : 235946 bps, or 235 kbps.

results may vary, etc

xwred1

12-02-2003, 05:24 PM

I got mine in Stockton. Other people in the area have gotten it also. And in Modesto too, it would seem.

I heard their official date for 3mbit service was around December 18th... so maybe they are just bringing up the separate regions and that will be the latest that you could get the bump.

I wish they decided to bump upload too. Severely asymmetric speeds are a turnoff for me.

VitaMan

12-02-2003, 05:29 PM

No bumpy here in sac (at least for me). 1760/225 still (same as before I rebooted modem).

FAngel

12-10-2003, 12:34 AM

WOOT!
I just noticed my modem had reset, and what do you know.
your
download «3172 kbps

your
upload «245 kbps

:)
Much better :)

Punl<

12-10-2003, 01:35 AM

I generally get DL speeds of 220-230 and uploads at about 20-25. What's the best way to get an accurate read on my connection speeds? Is there software that will track it for me, show me when it might be slowing down and or speeding up? I’m on Comcast and I almost never get disconnected or lose connection. Last time I recall losing connection was over 6 month’s ago. Id still like to know what im getting and if the speeds constant or not. It'd just be nice to know.

Freeware options? Or maybe the "other" Freeware options? :confused: ;)

DeadLamb

12-10-2003, 01:58 AM

Originally posted by Punl<
Is there software that will track it for me, show me when it might be slowing down and or speeding up?

I run NetStat Live (http://www.analogx.com/contents/download/network/nsl.htm).. Freeware and it just just a little bandwidth / cpu use tracker.. Not much too it but it does what I was looking for..

Sure there bigger programs that track everything and chart this and that.. blah.. I just wanted to see how fast I'm d/l'ing anything at any given time.. Whole program is a whopping 257k too.. heh

Punl<

12-10-2003, 02:22 AM

Sweet looking. I'll DL and give it a run when I get home from work later.

Anasazi

12-10-2003, 07:13 AM

Damn!
I'm going to have to check mine when I get home.

Aksen

12-13-2003, 12:25 PM

http://pic1.picturetrail.com/VOL111/1707027/3279319/40205433.jpg

I downloaded something at 390 kb/s this morning. :eek:

GotNoRice

12-13-2003, 12:42 PM

I've not been very impressed with the speed upgrade. It's kinda nice, but just going from fast to faster isn't so great when you upload is the thing holding you back 95% of the time.

I'd rather be able to do bittorrent and game at the same time than have my download speed doubled.

Aksen

12-13-2003, 12:46 PM

Agreed. But I'll take what I can get.

But yeah, if they doubled or tripled the upload rate, online gaming would be tenfold smoother.

Iano

12-13-2003, 12:57 PM

aol sucks balls, thats all i gotta say

xwred1

12-13-2003, 01:17 PM

Originally posted by GotNoRice
I've not been very impressed with the speed upgrade. It's kinda nice, but just going from fast to faster isn't so great when you upload is the thing holding you back 95% of the time.

I'd rather be able to do bittorrent and game at the same time than have my download speed doubled.

You could traffic-shape the BitTorrent so it doesn't destroy your connection.

FAngel

12-13-2003, 01:21 PM

GNR,
You should see if you can get Speakeasy, they have a 1.5/768 package for about the same as your Comcast connection. They even have a 3.0/768k connection, but it is $119.00 (or something like that) a month. I think they even have a 3 month promo going on where you could order the higher speed, then downgrade at the end of the promo. www.speakeasy.net

)( C4m3L_T03 )(

12-13-2003, 01:50 PM

When I went home for Thanksgiving Charter upgraded the connection I had at home. It was nice to download stuff at 2mbit as oppossed to 768kbps, but when your upload stays at 128kbps it does kick you in the ass. I would have glady kept my 768 down if they upgraded my upload to 2mbit.

GotNoRice

12-13-2003, 02:20 PM

Originally posted by xwred1
You could traffic-shape the BitTorrent so it doesn't destroy your connection.

Not sure what you mean by that.

I'm using a client that can limit the upload, but even limiting it to 5K (the lowest setting it has) it still causes lag in games. I'm not sure why, being that only represents 1/6th of my upload :(

I'll look into speakeasy. All the tests i've run say i'm out of range by a few thousand feet or so, but the tests at my dad's office (about a mile from our house) said he was even farther and he was able to get DSL there just fine so I'm not sure how accurate the tests are.

EDIT: Just checked their prices, it's 49.95 for 1.5/256, 79.95 for 1.5/768, and 139.99 for 3.0/768. I think we're paying about $52 a month for comcast.

xwred1

12-13-2003, 03:02 PM

Not sure what you mean by that.

I mean to reorder the packets at the box doing nat, perhaps giving udp traffic and tcp acks priority.

Giving udp priority should put games above everything, giving tcp acks priority should cut down on perceived lag.

Here's (http://www.benzedrine.cx/ackpri.html) a page from a guy who did it on dsl, looks like it helped him out a bit. Win2k3 should be able to do something like this no problem I think, they oughta have a nice wizard for it.

enervate

12-13-2003, 06:01 PM

Hey, where's my speed boost? Guess I'm not high on their priority list. Like everyone else, I would rather have my UL pumped that my DL due to the rather "unbalanced" nature of the connection.

VitaMan

12-14-2003, 10:49 AM

Yeah, no speed for me yet...

OnParole

12-14-2003, 11:26 AM

Sometimes I h8 having a Synchronous conection of 1mbs both directions because the downloads suck. But I do get better upstream than most so I guess it is a nice equalizer.

ChosenOne

12-15-2003, 11:55 AM

Originally posted by Bullfrog
I would just be happy if they could get my service running stable again. I have had my cablemodem services for almost 4 years and in the last 3 1/2 prior to Comcrap it has been great. In the last 3 months the service goes down at least a couple times a week. In the last month it goes down every damn day. The local guys keep saying they had a problem but it's fixed now.

I am about 30 seconds away from calling SBC and getting DSL. I could careless about faster service from Comcrap, they can't even keep the standard stuff running. Plus what they want to charge for the service is a joke. If you want the faster service it's going to cost you $99.95 a month. A $100 a month 3Mbit is a rip-off for the service you will actually get. Sorry...but I am not impressed with Comcast and their business model.
Call comcast and get a new modem. I had the same problems and it was the modem. They tried to tell me other wise and I forced them into getting me a different modem and now I am doing great! Good luck!